Fallen London

[Bishop149]

Hey, I recently got into this game and was wondering if anyone else here plays?
Such contacts are useful because there appear to be various mechanisms by which players can help each other out.

For those who don't know it its a browser game from Failbetter games, who are likely better known for their more traditional games Sunless Sea and Sunless Sky.
Fallen London is set within the same setting and if you've ever played either of those two and thought "Gee this world is super complex with seemingly endless depth", well Fallen London is where that comes from. It's apparently over a million words of background . . . . for reference the bible has ~750,000

The game itself is a slow paced affair with the primarily focused upon:
- Growing your familiarity with the setting and the stories it contains, starting from knowing basically nothing.
- Building your character's skills and renown, both as a means to the above and to reflect your progress with it.

Its slow because your "actions" are time limited, you start with 20 and gain a new one every 10 minutes. So if you blast through your 20 it will take about 3 hours to get them all back. It's clearly designed for sporadic play. It's free to play but if you pay £5 a month you get 40 actions and access to some exclusive content.
I've paid up for a month to fuel my current enthusiasm, but TBH I don't think I'll keep it going long, its not great value for money.

[Morkonan]

...Its slow because your "actions" are time limited, you start with 20 and gain a new one every 10 minutes. So if you blast through your 20 it will take about 3 hours to get them all back. It's clearly designed for sporadic play. It's free to play but if you pay £5 a month you get 40 actions and access to some exclusive content.
I've paid up for a month to fuel my current enthusiasm, but TBH I don't think I'll keep it going long, its not great value for money.

That sort of monetization scheme scares me... I once played a browser game like that, but it was much harsher. That's always left a bad taste in my mouth for such schemes. They're not designed for "sporadic play" at all. No game with that much deep lore and such an apparently rich setting is designed for player to "only experience it a few times a day." Zero. None.

I haven't played Sunless Sea, but have always had an interest in it. It's a little bit too "readee" for me. I love a good story, I just like playing a game more than I like reading dialogue choices and itty-bitty placards of stuff i have to squint at.

By the way, the mechanic of "getting other players to help you" is, of course, a "selling drugs to your friends in order to support your own addiction" mechanic. Don't think it's not. ALL of those sorts of games use that exact same mechanic for that exact same reason.

Pity, though. They're probably making good money off this game, like many browser games do, and they'll be encouraged to stick with that model. Pity - Such a great setting and lore and it's being dumped into a high-profit, low importance, browser game instead of sitting in glory in a great, new, powerful PC game with deep and enjoyable mechanics.

[pjknibbs]

That sort of monetization scheme scares me... I once played a browser game like that, but it was much harsher. That's always left a bad taste in my mouth for such schemes.

I, too, am totally against people being paid for producing things...

Seriously, this sounds like a fairly reasonable monetisation scheme to me. It's a LONG way short of EA's "Perform 2 actions every 24 hours unless you give us the moneys" that they used for Dungeon Keeper Mobile.

[Bishop149]

That sort of monetization scheme scares me... I once played a browser game like that, but it was much harsher. That's always left a bad taste in my mouth for such schemes. They're not designed for "sporadic play" at all. No game with that much deep lore and such an apparently rich setting is designed for player to "only experience it a few times a day." Zero. None.

Its not so bad, TBH if you were playing full pelt you could burn through 40 actions almost as fast as you could burn through 20, so the difference between the free to play and paid doesn't seem stark (to me at least). The way I play it is for a few minutes every few hours or so when I want a quick break from work at my desk. It seems eminently suited for this kind of play, so much so its tempting to assuming its designed for it!

There's a game play aspect here too, if for example you simply payed 20 quid and then got access to unlimited actions it would likely completely ruin the game . . . for me at least.
The limit makes you think pretty carefully about what you want to do and what direction you want to develop your character in because you simply can't do everything at once.
I'm pitching my character as an Author/Poet with a dark side, the former is going to be my professional direction but by ambitions are going to be focused on nefarious thievery and possibly courting the infernal.
There's also an aspect that the discovery should feel slow, the game chucks you in a vast setting with zero knowledge. It feels like it should take an investment of time to work things out and build connections.
I think the slowness is to this game what endlessly dying is to Dark Souls, a frustration sure but one that's critical to the game play.

Anyway, as I said I don't think its very good value for money as a running subscription, I will subscribe for a couple of months to pay the creators what I think its worth and to fuel my initial enthusiasm and then cut it off and play for free. Also to be fair to them it makes it VERY clear how long your subscription has to run so it can't sneak up on you, and you can cancel it at any time with a single click.

[Antilogic]

Does sound interesting, will have a look

[Morkonan]

Its not so bad, TBH if you were playing full pelt you could burn through 40 actions almost as fast as you could burn through 20, so the difference between the free to play and paid doesn't seem stark (to me at least). The way I play it is for a few minutes every few hours or so when I want a quick break from work at my desk. It seems eminently suited for this kind of play, so much so its tempting to assuming its designed for it!

There's a game play aspect here too, if for example you simply payed 20 quid and then got access to unlimited actions it would likely completely ruin the game . . . for me at least....

I understand, I suppose. It's just that it's an entirely different sort of "gaming" experience. When I play a game, I want to play it, not watch it play or have play-time dictated to me. Action points awarded over time might be great for people who don't mind having their play forcefully limited, like someone who might want to check in on their progress while at work for a few minutes a day.

But, typically, that's just a rationalization for the monetization scheme. It may not "hook" some players, but for some the forced absence is too much and that's what they're counting on. Not saying they're doing something nefarious with this game, but if it looks like a duck...

A friend of mine used the same rationalization to get me to play a browser game, once. OK, fine, we can play it together and have some fun. (He lives in another State and we don't see each other often.) I can't remember the game, some Chrome-only thing with ships and islands. Well, it was kind of fun. You built things, researched things, took your little fleet to go attack NPC locations or other players for resources, etc.. Fun, explosions, boats and subs and missiles, "oh my." Until you reached a point where building or researching things cost "time." Large amounts of time. I had built up my island and fleet and was busy placing defensive installations to ward off attacks by other players. I could wait like 15-45 minutes or 24 hours or some crap for one tower to finish upgrading... or pay $5 to have instant feedback and an upgraded tower, which was one of a score of towers I needed to upgrade. WTF?

The game was addictive. But, they had hooked in "pay for your addiction" at every darn turn once you had played and progressed enough that they were sure you were "hooked." Suddenly, no more free fun, now ya gotta pay big to keep playing. At some point, you'd be waiting an entire day for one little darn thing, which was desperately needed, built or was researched or was repaired after some other player stomped your island while you were offline. "Nope, this sux and these people are evil," was my response.

Admittedly, it was a "bad experience." Moreso because I could see what they were trying to do and it was insultingly blatant.

That sort of monetization scheme scares me... I once played a browser game like that, but it was much harsher. That's always left a bad taste in my mouth for such schemes.

I, too, am totally against people being paid for producing things...

Seriously, this sounds like a fairly reasonable monetisation scheme to me. It's a LONG way short of EA's "Perform 2 actions every 24 hours unless you give us the moneys" that they used for Dungeon Keeper Mobile.

Because of the experience above and the unethical use of well-known principles of manipulation/psychology, my first reactions to these sorts of things are always negative... In truth, though, I shouldn't be so quick to judge. It's just pretty darn obvious that they chose the medium and the method not because it's best suited for the game, but because it's best suited to make the most profit.

Does anyone doubt if the devs of Sunless Sea released a PC/Console successor that it would get a lot of attention and enjoy good sales? That game captured the imagination of a lot of gamers and presented a pretty unique experience.

Anyway, I'm fine with anyone playing what they like, just as long as they don't hurt someone or themselves doing it.


For this game, how much can one possibly spend in "real world monies?" Unlimited? A limit? How far could a "whale" player progress if they wanted to and does their progression have any effect on anyone else's game at all? ie: Can they effect someone else's game? Are their achievements ranked and their privileges extolled to the masses?

[pjknibbs]

Does anyone doubt if the devs of Sunless Sea released a PC/Console successor that it would get a lot of attention and enjoy good sales? That game captured the imagination of a lot of gamers and presented a pretty unique experience.

They already have, it's called Sunless Skies. (And that's ignoring the Zubmariner expansion to Sunless Seas, too).

[Morkonan]

..They already have, it's called Sunless Skies. ...

0.o

Why was I not informed?



/writescomplainttocongressman
/hunts for sequel

[Bishop149]

For this game, how much can one possibly spend in "real world monies?" Unlimited? A limit? How far could a "whale" player progress if they wanted to and does their progression have any effect on anyone else's game at all? ie: Can they effect someone else's game? Are their achievements ranked and their privileges extolled to the masses?

In theory you could spend a lot of monies.
There is also a system called "Fate" in the game which is basically just a pay to play mechanism. It does't appeal to me in the slightest mostly because it's stupidly expensive.
Restoring my 40 actions would cost about £4 . . . . nearly the cost of a subscription, for (if you were really going for it) about 10 minutes play.
Anyone who does that is frankly either rich or stupid.
I'd never blame anyone for exploiting the rich, have at them! . . . . . exploiting the stupid however is morally dubious. Its a shame we can't allow the former and somehow block the latter!

As far as I know no other player can screw up your game unless you specifically allow them to, even then the consequences are minor.
Its also a game with no real fail state, AFAIK your character can't "die". . . . all the bad things that can happen are twists to the tale your building that can be worked through.
Its very much a game of storytelling / building. . . . as such it appeals to the Role Player in me.

I actually read an article from Failbetter in which they partially outlined their finances. It was in response to a question they apparently get asked a lot: "Why don't you just charge a AAA price and let us play all we want?"
The response was essentially: "No one would pay a AAA price, look at these games (similar to ours) that employ that model, they all charge <£10"
They obviously decided that the subscription model is where the money is, and they're probably right. If someone subscribes for 1-2 months then they've basically sold their game, anything above that will be an improvement. I don't think its especially exploitative, £5 / month isn't going to bankrupt anyone likely to be playing this game.
They also stated that only a very small proportion of Fallen London's revenue is generated by Fate. Implying that most indeed people see straight through it as basically a scam, as you and I would.

[Morkonan]

...I'd never blame anyone for exploiting the rich, have at them! . . . . . exploiting the stupid however is morally dubious. Its a shame we can't allow the former and somehow block the latter!

Unfortunately, most of the "rich" didn't get that way by letting people take their money. Some do, however, throw heaps of it all over the place and sometimes it's on "games." Unfortunately, the same mechanics that allow them to be fleeced of their surplus income happen to suck in lonely housewives and people who stay at home all day. Crack is crack - It has no target audience once someone is willing to consume it.

The companies that are the most outrageous aren't sustained by casual players. They make the most money from "whales." That's players who spend relatively absurd amounts of money on their game. And, of those people, most of them are not "rich." Few of them have vast amounts of surplus income because they could afford to do much more funner things, like build an island "for realz" and plant elaborate gardens and rent out an entire ranch to "play farmer" for the weekend. Or, go out on their yacht with hookers and blow... (Or, get treated like a real "Whale" in Las Vegas.)

As far as I know no other player can screw up your game unless you specifically allow them to, even then the consequences are minor.

That's great to know! A lot of games like that out there purposefully use "competition" or "combat" to inspire additional purchases/sales. "If I buy this, I don't have to worry about that one guy roflstomping me again!" "I could get on the competitive ladder and earn a bunch of badges to show off if I bought this!" That's... bad.

The response was essentially: "No one would pay a AAA price, look at these games (similar to ours) that employ that model, they all charge <£10"
They obviously decided that the subscription model is where the money is, and they're probably right. If someone subscribes for 1-2 months then they've basically sold their game, anything above that will be an improvement. I don't think its especially exploitative, £5 / month isn't going to bankrupt anyone likely to be playing this game.
They also stated that only a very small proportion of Fallen London's revenue is generated by Fate. Implying that most indeed people see straight through it as basically a scam, as you and I would.

That's fine. I'm not against anyone making an honest living. I certainly approve of roleplaying and storytelling, too. Like I wrote earlier, I'm "gunshy." And, after seeing some of the terrible shennanigans that some money-grabbing devs have done in order to addict people to their games... I'm pretty defensive about the whole subject.

When you first feel that irrepressible urge to click and see that "Deposit another umpteen monies to do this, now" and you almost press the button because you just absolutely "have to"... Well, that's the sign it's probably time to uninstall.

But, if you enjoy it and don't feel any sort of constant pressure to keep paying? Then, keep playing.